As part of the Salazar Center’s celebration of National Public Lands Day, we asked a few of our friends and partners to reflect on the power of public lands to inspire hope, foster unity, and strengthen communities. This reflection is part of that series.
In my role at the Salazar Center, public lands come up in conversations around things like conservation targets (like America the Beautiful), landscape connectivity, and Indigenous co-management, and I would eagerly engage on any of these topics on National Public Lands Day, especially given this year’s theme of “Together for Tomorrow.” But there’s another angle from which I can consider this theme, and a much more personal one.
Outside of work, I’m a hunter, and I’ve also volunteered in a variety of roles for my state’s parks and wildlife agency. Participating in these activities means I spend a good bit of time on public lands, often in ways that 90+ percent of the public isn’t experiencing. It’s sitting in the dark at 4:oo am on an October morning, cold and silent, hiding behind a shrub or a rise on the landscape. It’s bushwacking through (and as a short person, getting very tangled in) tall grass and tumbleweeds on the plains. It’s wandering off-trail, meandering slowly and head down, marking on a mapping app where I see droppings or wallows or signs of grazing. It’s harvesting my food from the land, with deep respect and reverence and usually a few tears of gratitude. Rather than seeking out mountain-top vistas or pristine alpine lakes or even just trying to log a few miles in the name of exercise—all of which I also do regularly—these experiences on public lands are about reading and understanding the terrain, the habitat, the animals and the signs they leave behind.
I have only been hunting for a few years (“adult-onset,” some folks like to call it)—less time than I’ve been recreating in other ways, and less time than I’ve spent in my career in conservation. I took up hunting because it was introduced to me in grad school as “one tool in the conservation toolbox,” because I wanted to feel closer to my food, and because for the first time in my life, I was living in a place where vast public lands were minutes from my home, rather than hours. Hunting also felt like a real opportunity to financially support public lands, by buying annual licenses and paying excise taxes on firearms and ammunition—money that goes back into public land coffers regardless of whether my hunt is successful.
Reflecting today on public lands, I feel immensely privileged to be able to consider their importance from so many perspectives. Public lands safeguard ecosystems and habitats and provide clean air and water. They provide access to nature and opportunities to run, climb, ride, paddle, and escape in wild and beautiful places. They provide food. Everyone who enjoys these things has a connection to nature and an interest in protecting public lands, even if not everyone shares an interest in how they enjoy public lands. In this way, and as many have opined before me, public lands and conservation can be a great unifier across political identities and cultures. With so many threats facing our public lands, the best way to ensure they are thriving and accessible now and for future generations is to continue to find ways to come together, not reasons to divide ourselves.
Catie Boehmer is the Assistant Director of Engagement and Operations for the Salazar Center for North American Conservation.